Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And you know, one
Speaker 1: thing I haven't really covered in this show is just
Speaker 1: a rundown on common acronyms and initialisms in the world
Speaker 1: of tech and what those things actually mean. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: run into these things and they can throw you for
Speaker 1: a loop. So today and in the next few episodes,
Speaker 1: we're doing a sort of glossary of tech related terms
Speaker 1: you might encounter and what those actually mean. Not really terms,
Speaker 1: but again those initialisms and acronyms. I will spend a
Speaker 1: little bit of time on each of these because there's
Speaker 1: a lot to get through, so expect to hear a
Speaker 1: bit of context, not just a deaf ffinition. Do you
Speaker 1: want a definition? You could pull up lists of acronyms
Speaker 1: and initialisms and just see that. Now, before I jump
Speaker 1: into this, I do want to mention that this is
Speaker 1: by no means an exhaustive list of acronyms in tech.
Speaker 1: If I did that, it would pretty much completely take
Speaker 1: over this podcast for the next like four weeks. Instead,
Speaker 1: I've selected a bunch of acronyms and initialisms that I
Speaker 1: think are important to know, but I'm leaving out a
Speaker 1: ton of them, and I wouldn't blame anyone for saying
Speaker 1: I was being a bit arbitrary with my approach to selection.
Speaker 1: It turns out the tech world absolutely loves acronyms and initialisms,
Speaker 1: and some of them take longer to say than the
Speaker 1: full names, because I mean, why not. Also, just for
Speaker 1: the purposes of organization, I'm going to go alphabetically through
Speaker 1: the list here because I needed to organize this in
Speaker 1: some way and that seemed to make the most sense
Speaker 1: to me. In addition, with some of these, I have
Speaker 1: actually grouped related terms together. For example, if I just
Speaker 1: go strictly alphabetically, I would hit d RAM before RAM,
Speaker 1: which means things we get a little weird. So instead,
Speaker 1: d RAM is going to be part of a larger
Speaker 1: treatment on RAM in general. So if you feel like
Speaker 1: I've skipped over something, and I definitely have skipped over
Speaker 1: some things, just wait for all of these episodes to
Speaker 1: come out, just in case that thing shows up in
Speaker 1: a group entry, and maybe by that time you will
Speaker 1: have forgotten all about it, and I won't have to
Speaker 1: get angry messages. So let's get to it. And our
Speaker 1: first one isn't actually starting with a letter at all.
Speaker 1: It starts with the numeral two, so it's two f A.
Speaker 1: This one means to factor authentication, which I'm guessing most
Speaker 1: of you out there have encountered at some point. This
Speaker 1: is a means of authenticating a user, you know, saying yes,
Speaker 1: this user is who they claim to be, and they
Speaker 1: do it through well two factors. Those factors should belong
Speaker 1: to two different categories of things. There are three categories total.
Speaker 1: There's knowledge, so that would be stuff like a password.
Speaker 1: It's something that the user knows. There's stuff what is
Speaker 1: you by that I mean like biometrics like a retinal
Speaker 1: scan or a fingerprint scan or you know, a vocal
Speaker 1: scan that kind of thing. And then there's stuff what
Speaker 1: you own, like your cell phone or a physical token
Speaker 1: or something like that. So with two factor authentication, you
Speaker 1: have to provide two out of the three categories in
Speaker 1: order to get access to whatever system it is you're
Speaker 1: trying to access. This could be a building, it could
Speaker 1: be a computer, it could be a specific piece of software.
Speaker 1: A pretty common version of this is a password and
Speaker 1: a one time use access code that the system then
Speaker 1: sends to your registered smartphone. So the idea here, of course,
Speaker 1: is that if someone were to get hold of your password,
Speaker 1: like let's say you wrote it on a post it
Speaker 1: note or something I've seen it happen, well, that person
Speaker 1: would still need to have your phone in order to
Speaker 1: access that account once they were prompted by the system. So,
Speaker 1: when implemented properly, two factor authentication is a big boost insecurity.
Speaker 1: On a related note, you also have m f A,
Speaker 1: which stands for multi factor authentication that includes to F
Speaker 1: A but could extend beyond to F A for certain systems.
Speaker 1: And also, I know it can feel like a huge
Speaker 1: hassle to log into systems that require multi factor authentication,
Speaker 1: but it really is a more secure method than using
Speaker 1: passwords alone, for example, particularly in a world where data
Speaker 1: breaches and poor security habits can lead to someone gaining
Speaker 1: unauthorized access to a computer or network. Next, we have
Speaker 1: and C A n s I stands for American National
Speaker 1: Standards Institute. So if you're like me, you probably haven't
Speaker 1: traditionally spent a whole lot of time thinking about standards
Speaker 1: and where those standards come from. Now, standards are incredibly useful.
Speaker 1: They're what makes it possible for you to use stuff
Speaker 1: from totally different sources like manufacturers, for example, or or
Speaker 1: just companies in general, and have those things still work together.
Speaker 1: Imagine a world without standards. It kind of like me
Speaker 1: in college. It would just be a total mess. You
Speaker 1: would be locked into ecosystems even more than you already are.
Speaker 1: Like if every PC manufacturer went totally proprietary with their hardware,
Speaker 1: their firmware, and their software, you would be lawed into
Speaker 1: that system. You would never be able to use anything
Speaker 1: from anywhere else on a hardware related level, like not
Speaker 1: even computer hardware, just literal like hardware store hardware. Imagine
Speaker 1: that you had proprietary screws from one company and proprietary
Speaker 1: screw drivers from a different company, and they're not at
Speaker 1: all compatible, and that you would have to have everything
Speaker 1: from the same manufacturer for it to work together. It
Speaker 1: would be a nightmare and it would make things really
Speaker 1: difficult whenever you need to make repairs or add on
Speaker 1: to anything. So standards can apply to stuff like equipment
Speaker 1: or even processes and personnel. So standards can be far
Speaker 1: beyond just the physical stuff that we encounter or the
Speaker 1: types of of software that we use, and and see
Speaker 1: the organization that verify standards that dates back to nineteen
Speaker 1: It doesn't actually establish standards itself. It's not like this
Speaker 1: organization gets together and says we have the stone tablet
Speaker 1: that says all uh Phillips head screwdrivers have to be
Speaker 1: this particular shape. It's not like that. Instead, it's an
Speaker 1: accreditation organization that evaluates and approves standards that have been
Speaker 1: developed by other entities. That process involves a lot of collaboration.
Speaker 1: So and C brings together all the various parties that
Speaker 1: are affected by the adoption of those standards so that
Speaker 1: they can hash it out. Ultimately, this leads to a
Speaker 1: more orderly marketplace. All that being said, there's still lots
Speaker 1: of companies that develop proprietary technologies and processes, but the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the stuff we depend upon has an
Speaker 1: underlying uniformity thanks to standards. Next, a p I and
Speaker 1: s d K. This is one of those where I've
Speaker 1: combined two different things. So a p I stands for
Speaker 1: Application programming interface, s d A stands for software development kit.
Speaker 1: These two terms are frequently used together, but they are
Speaker 1: not interchangeable, and a p I is kind of like
Speaker 1: a software liaison, so it's a set of rules and
Speaker 1: tools that allow different pieces of software to communicate with
Speaker 1: each other. It helps developers create application software that can
Speaker 1: interoperate with some other piece of software or platform. So,
Speaker 1: for example, Facebook has an ap I that lets developers
Speaker 1: create apps that can tap into basic Facebook functionality. N
Speaker 1: s d K, on the other hand, is a more
Speaker 1: robust set of tools for the purposes of developing software,
Speaker 1: and s d K often has an API as part
Speaker 1: of the kit. So you can think of an API
Speaker 1: as a subset of the kind of tools that you
Speaker 1: find in an s d K. So an operating system
Speaker 1: might have an s d K, and that would allow
Speaker 1: developers to create software that could then run on top
Speaker 1: of that operating system, which, by the way, we often
Speaker 1: abbreviate to O S, so that's another bonus. OS stands
Speaker 1: for operating system. Next a R. A R stands for
Speaker 1: augmented reality. This applies to technologies that use some form
Speaker 1: of computer generated information to enhance our real world experience
Speaker 1: in some way. Frequently, we think of this as a
Speaker 1: visual overlay of the world around us. So, for example,
Speaker 1: Google Glass which had a transparent prism that was sort
Speaker 1: of look in a way that was not directly in
Speaker 1: your view if you were looking straight ahead, but rather
Speaker 1: up just a little bit, so you'd glance up a
Speaker 1: bit and you could look at this prism that was
Speaker 1: actually a screen that could display digital information. So I
Speaker 1: could give you, for example, step by step directions as
Speaker 1: you navigated around an environment. You would just glance up
Speaker 1: and see that, you know, in one feet you would
Speaker 1: need to make a left turn. Other versions of a
Speaker 1: R use a camera to pick up on an image
Speaker 1: and then display where you would be able to see
Speaker 1: some sort of effect related to that image. So one
Speaker 1: example of this is like an app where you would
Speaker 1: hold it up your phone, you know, hold up your phone,
Speaker 1: so the camera is looking at say a movie poster,
Speaker 1: and then on your screen that movie poster suddenly becomes
Speaker 1: animated and it's it's, you know, a pretty interesting effect.
Speaker 1: But you could have a R implementations that don't use
Speaker 1: visual elements at all. Just has to be a computer
Speaker 1: generated sensory experience that enhances or augments what's going on
Speaker 1: in the world around you. A R is a type
Speaker 1: of mixed reality which you can think of as existing
Speaker 1: on a spectrum. So on one end of the spectrum
Speaker 1: you have an experience that is heavily dependent upon real reality,
Speaker 1: and the computational elements are extremely light touch. And then
Speaker 1: on the other side of the spectrum you have experiences
Speaker 1: that are heavily dependent on a computer generated reality. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could have somewhere the computer generated reality is replacing
Speaker 1: almost everything of your real experience. Arguably, augmented reality started
Speaker 1: off as an entertainment experience pioneered by a guy named
Speaker 1: Morton Heilig back in the late nineteen fifties. He invented
Speaker 1: a machine called the sensor Rama. The idea being that
Speaker 1: you would sit down in one of these machines. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a almost like a console type thing.
Speaker 1: You would sit at and you would watch some form
Speaker 1: of movie or short film, and that would be augmented
Speaker 1: with other sensations, like the device would emit certain smells,
Speaker 1: like let's say that you're looking at video or a
Speaker 1: film rather of orange groves, and suddenly you can smell oranges,
Speaker 1: and you could even get haptic sensation, so so tactile feedback.
Speaker 1: There would be little vibrating motors and stuff, and that
Speaker 1: was a kind of the birth of augmented reality. As
Speaker 1: for the term itself, Thomas P. Coddle gets the credit
Speaker 1: for coining that term in nine back when he was
Speaker 1: working at Boeing. Next up, we've got our PA slash DARPA.
Speaker 1: So our PA A r p A stands for Advanced
Speaker 1: Research Projects Agency and DARPA, which is the same organization.
Speaker 1: It's just a new name that stands for Defense Advanced
Speaker 1: Research Projects Agency. That's the current name for the organization.
Speaker 1: This is the R and D ARM of the United
Speaker 1: States Department of Defense. Now this agency isn't actually a
Speaker 1: think tank filled with like labs and scientists playing with
Speaker 1: beakers and robots and aliens and stuff. Instead, it's an
Speaker 1: organization that's focused primarily on providing funding to other research
Speaker 1: organizations that are actually developing technologies that could potentially be
Speaker 1: useful in the cause of national defense. DARPA has played
Speaker 1: a huge role in the evolution of technologies like computer networks,
Speaker 1: autonomous cars, drone technology, and much more. ARPA net a
Speaker 1: predecessor of the Internet, came out of an ARPA initiative.
Speaker 1: As the name implies, many of the autonomous car projects
Speaker 1: in various companies can actually trace their history back to
Speaker 1: participants who are competing in one of the DARPA Grand
Speaker 1: Challenges of Driver Ellis vehicles. These challenges lay out really
Speaker 1: ambitious goals and then various teams strive to achieve those
Speaker 1: while competing against other teams, and they're all going for
Speaker 1: a cash prize and really bragging rights for winning the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Now, it's important to remember that the chief
Speaker 1: role of DARPA is ultimately to fund projects that could
Speaker 1: potentially be used in a defense or millet very context,
Speaker 1: and the organization has been connected to some rather unsavory
Speaker 1: projects in the past, such as the use of herbicides
Speaker 1: in warfare, most notably agent orange, which is a highly
Speaker 1: toxic and carcinogenic compound that was used by the United
Speaker 1: States during the Vietnam War. Then we have as key
Speaker 1: or a s c I. I stands for American Standard
Speaker 1: Code for Information into Exchange. It's a standard for how
Speaker 1: an eight bit system represents numbers, letters, and certain symbols.
Speaker 1: So a bit is a binary digit and it can
Speaker 1: have a value of zero or one. So each bit
Speaker 1: has two potential values. Right, a bit can be either
Speaker 1: a zero or a one. If you have two bits.
Speaker 1: Then you've got four potential values, which would be zero, zero, zero, one,
Speaker 1: one zero, or one one. When you get up to
Speaker 1: eight bits, you have two hundred fifty six potential values.
Speaker 1: The American Standards Association's X three division created as key
Speaker 1: as a standard for representing various characters using binary with
Speaker 1: these eight bits or a bite if you prefer, a
Speaker 1: bite is eight bits. The standard could then be used
Speaker 1: in bit based computer systems, which allowed for electronic communication
Speaker 1: of these characters. So we have to remember that computers
Speaker 1: don't process language the same way we do. They typically
Speaker 1: process language and form of machine code. Machine code, more
Speaker 1: often than not, means binary. That's something that we humans
Speaker 1: can't really handle very well. Machines can handle it very
Speaker 1: very quickly. So the as key was a way of
Speaker 1: translating binary into characters and vice versa. Very important when
Speaker 1: you're using computers to communicate between two different people. Basic, alright, Basic,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, is an acronym. It's not just
Speaker 1: a word. Basic stands for beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code.
Speaker 1: It's a type of high level programming language, and the
Speaker 1: developers of Basic intended it to be a relatively easy
Speaker 1: to use programming language that computer science students could pick
Speaker 1: up pretty quickly. So what does high level mean in
Speaker 1: this case, Well, machines, like I said, process information in
Speaker 1: machine code, and the most famous of this is binary.
Speaker 1: Machines can process binary code very very quickly, but it's
Speaker 1: incredibly hard for humans to do the same. It's easy
Speaker 1: for me to say the letter H, for example, but
Speaker 1: if I have to look up the as key code
Speaker 1: for the letter H, that would be zero one one
Speaker 1: zero one zero zero zero. That's if I wanted to
Speaker 1: do a lower case H, and upper case H is
Speaker 1: a totally different code, so that would very quickly become
Speaker 1: impossible for me to use this this binary language to
Speaker 1: make any kind of meaningful set of instructions, like a
Speaker 1: program to run on a computer. So to make it
Speaker 1: easier for humans to program and work with computers, various
Speaker 1: very smart people have created programming languages. Now, some programming
Speaker 1: languages we refer to as being low level languages. That
Speaker 1: means they are fairly close to machine code and thus
Speaker 1: they're pretty hard for humans to work with. But other
Speaker 1: languages are more of an abstraction and they are high level,
Speaker 1: so they are easy or at least easier for humans
Speaker 1: to work with as they type out instructions to create
Speaker 1: a program, so a compiler then takes that language and
Speaker 1: translates it into machine code for the computer to process.
Speaker 1: Basic is one of the older modern computer languages and
Speaker 1: one that goofs is like yours. Truly it around with
Speaker 1: when personal computers first became a thing. You can still
Speaker 1: program in Basic, though there are far more sophisticated programming
Speaker 1: languages out there. Of course. Next is BIOS, which stands
Speaker 1: for Basic Input output System. So if you look at
Speaker 1: a computer and you get a bit abstract, you realize
Speaker 1: there's some proverbial layers going on with your basic computer
Speaker 1: or computational device. You've got your actual circuitry, right, You've
Speaker 1: got the actual hardware through which information ultimately must be processed.
Speaker 1: These are the physical pathways that electricity can flow through.
Speaker 1: These are the transistors and the wires and processors and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But you've also got software.
Speaker 1: These are the programs that you run to create various outputs.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a video game, maybe it's a word processor,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a web browser. These are chunks of code
Speaker 1: that respond to your input and create an output based
Speaker 1: on that. But there's got to be a layer that
Speaker 1: allows for software to interact with hardware, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of what BIOS is doing. It's a type of firmware,
Speaker 1: which is a low level software that interacts with a
Speaker 1: hardware level. BIOS initiates the boot up process, among other things,
Speaker 1: and the BIOS sets the boot priority, which is essentially
Speaker 1: a list that dictates the order in which processes may
Speaker 1: initiate upon a machine booting up. All right, so far
Speaker 1: we have covered only the a's and the bees plus
Speaker 1: a number with two F A. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll see what's next. It's um, it's c because that
Speaker 1: was a pun. I'm so sorry. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start off the seas with CAT C A D.
Speaker 1: It's not just a scoundrel. It actually stands for a
Speaker 1: computer aided design and as the name IMPLOY lies, this
Speaker 1: refers to the practice of using computers or computerized workstations
Speaker 1: to assist in the design of something. It could be
Speaker 1: in the design of electronics or architecture, or mechanical systems
Speaker 1: or animation. I first learned about CAD approaches from my
Speaker 1: friend Michael in high school. He took a course in drafting,
Speaker 1: and that's where he first worked with CAD applications. Me. No,
Speaker 1: I never got into that because ain't no computer that's
Speaker 1: been made that can aid me in the design enough
Speaker 1: to make something I make look good or be functional. Today,
Speaker 1: CAD is used in tons of industries, from aerospace to
Speaker 1: prosthetics to computer animation. Designers may work in a two
Speaker 1: D format that's two dimensional, or they might use three
Speaker 1: D models. It all depends on the specific implementation. You
Speaker 1: know what they're using it for, and the program next
Speaker 1: is CAT or C A T. In this case, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about CAT as in category, which we use to
Speaker 1: describe certain types of network cables, like ethernet cables. These
Speaker 1: are a subset of twisted pair cables. So let's just
Speaker 1: walk through that really quickly. If you're familiar with electromagnetism,
Speaker 1: you know that a current running through a conductor generates
Speaker 1: a magnetic field, and you know that a fluctuating magnetic
Speaker 1: field will induce a current to flow through a nearby conductor.
Speaker 1: We can do a lot of cool stuff with that
Speaker 1: because of that basic law of physics, but it also
Speaker 1: means we have to take interference into account when we
Speaker 1: build out electronics. If you had two unshielded conductors that
Speaker 1: were near each other, the current flowing through conductor number
Speaker 1: one would interfere with conductor number two. So one thing
Speaker 1: you can do to limit this is you can insulate
Speaker 1: the conductors. You can use a non conductive material to
Speaker 1: coat those. But another thing you can do is you
Speaker 1: can twist a pair of conductors together that actually reduces
Speaker 1: the interference between the two. Alexander Graham Bell discovered this
Speaker 1: and used it when building out devices like the early telephone,
Speaker 1: and in fact telephone wires use this particular approach. Let's
Speaker 1: skip ahead to the nine nineties. After the development of
Speaker 1: Level one cables, which are used for telephone wires, and
Speaker 1: Level two, which was used in early computer terminal systems,
Speaker 1: particularly at places like IBM, twisted pair cables came in
Speaker 1: a type called Category three or just Cat three cables,
Speaker 1: and then went from there. Cat three cables allowed for
Speaker 1: a bandwidth of sixteen mega hurts of frequencies for the
Speaker 1: purposes of data transmission. These days, most Ethernet cables are
Speaker 1: actually Cat five E cables, which can transmit data at
Speaker 1: up to gigabit speeds. There are other Cat gory cables
Speaker 1: out there, some of which have yet to be ratified
Speaker 1: by standards organizations. That also means that because they haven't
Speaker 1: been ratified, there aren't that many equipment manufacturers that have created,
Speaker 1: you know, actual devices that accept those kinds of cables,
Speaker 1: because it could be a very expensive mistake to build
Speaker 1: out stuff that is accepting a non standardized input. If
Speaker 1: standards organizations never ratify specific implementations and declare them as standard,
Speaker 1: you could end up having devices that have useless ports,
Speaker 1: and that's just an expense that you didn't need to have. Next,
Speaker 1: we have C MOSS or c m O S. This
Speaker 1: stands for complementary metal oxide semiconductor, which is a type
Speaker 1: of semiconductor that says nice things about your outfit. Wait no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, wait being told that's the wrong kind of complementary.
Speaker 1: With regard to computer chips, C MOSS refers to a
Speaker 1: chip that's ors information about the hardware settings of the device.
Speaker 1: So BIOS references s MOSS when going through the booting process.
Speaker 1: So SA MOSS and BIOS work together to bring a
Speaker 1: computational device online and in proper working order upon booting up.
Speaker 1: The memory on S MOSS is dynamic and technically it's
Speaker 1: temporary or volatile in other words, And if S Moss
Speaker 1: were to ever go unmpowered, like if the chip were
Speaker 1: to be able to cut off from power, the memory
Speaker 1: on that chip would just wipe out. It would be blank.
Speaker 1: It would be a race essentially. But Bios needs the
Speaker 1: instructions from s Moss to boot properly, right, Bios depends
Speaker 1: on s Moss to essentially instruct the Bios what order
Speaker 1: to do stuff in so, the S Moss chip relies
Speaker 1: on a small battery to stay powered up even when
Speaker 1: the computer itself has turned off or if you lost
Speaker 1: power or whatever. These batteries can last a really long time.
Speaker 1: Ten years, isn't on you usual, Uh, it's typically at
Speaker 1: least as long as the life cycle for the motherboard
Speaker 1: of your computer. Most of the time you would actually
Speaker 1: be ready to replace the whole device before you would
Speaker 1: ever need to replace the C Moss battery, although there
Speaker 1: are cases where people have had to do that. Now,
Speaker 1: when you boot up a computer, you actually do have
Speaker 1: a tool that allows you the option to either boot
Speaker 1: into BIOS or S Moss. Booting into sea Moss gives
Speaker 1: you the chance to change sea Moss settings which in
Speaker 1: turn will affect how BIOS handles the booting process in
Speaker 1: the future. Sea Moss, by the way, is a PC term,
Speaker 1: as in personal computer, not politically correct. In Apple Mac computers,
Speaker 1: the equivalent is PRAM or p RAM that stands for
Speaker 1: parameter ram. But we're gonna talk about RAM in a
Speaker 1: later episode, all right. I should also add that there
Speaker 1: is another s MOSS in tech, and that's the type
Speaker 1: of active pixels sensor found in some digital cameras. See
Speaker 1: MOSS is just one type of these kinds of sensors,
Speaker 1: and to go into how those sensors work would require
Speaker 1: a pretty thorough explanation, and it's full episode on its own,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to leave that for the time being.
Speaker 1: Just understand that there's that version to It still stands
Speaker 1: for the same thing, by the way, It's still complementary
Speaker 1: metal oxide semiconductor, but it has a different purpose. Moving
Speaker 1: on CMS now with regard to tech, CMS means content
Speaker 1: management system. Typically, this is a framework within which users
Speaker 1: can post, edit, and delete content, such as web content.
Speaker 1: A CMS typically has a structure that allows for a
Speaker 1: uniform approach to adding content to a pre existing system,
Speaker 1: like say a website that way, even someone who is
Speaker 1: new to that environment can still post stuff that's in
Speaker 1: line with the standards and protocols of the site. So
Speaker 1: let's take an actual example and use my old employer,
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. That site has a CMS
Speaker 1: that allows people to create content in article format, including
Speaker 1: the basics and how images show up on screen, where
Speaker 1: captions should appear, and in what font and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's sort of like a way to
Speaker 1: create and manage templates and then post content within that template.
Speaker 1: And back when I worked at how stuff Works, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to use the CMS very much myself. I
Speaker 1: would write my articles and then a publisher would take
Speaker 1: the finished and edited product and then put it into
Speaker 1: CMS for publication. Our CMS also allowed publishers to set
Speaker 1: a time for that publication, so that a finished piece
Speaker 1: of copy could go live on the site at a
Speaker 1: specific designated time. So there was a content delivery application
Speaker 1: or c d A that would take the formatted content
Speaker 1: and push it to go live. A good CMS will
Speaker 1: have lots of features that make life easier for publishers,
Speaker 1: like audit logs to keep track of changes that are
Speaker 1: made to content, or a small server footprint so that
Speaker 1: the CMS isn't taking too much space on a network.
Speaker 1: Really good ones will have a very intuitive UI that
Speaker 1: stands for user interface. So a user interface is exactly
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. It's the way in which a
Speaker 1: user interacts with a technology. So that's another little bonus
Speaker 1: initialism for you. Right there. Next is KAPPA c O
Speaker 1: p p A. I covered this in a recent episode
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff, so I'm not gonna spend too much
Speaker 1: time on it, but it stands for Children's Online Privacy
Speaker 1: Protection Act. The US Congress passed this Act into law
Speaker 1: in n KAPPA requires online sites and services that target
Speaker 1: users who are under the age of thirteen to comply
Speaker 1: with certain rules or else face civil lawsuits from entities
Speaker 1: like the Federal Trade Commission or FTC. Those rules state
Speaker 1: that a site or service has to get the express
Speaker 1: permission from a parent or guardian of a child before
Speaker 1: they can collect that child's information. Further, the eighter service
Speaker 1: cannot collect any and all information about the kid. It
Speaker 1: can't just like build out a comprehensive database of all
Speaker 1: data points about that child. They are only supposed to
Speaker 1: collect the information needed to provide whatever service it is
Speaker 1: that the entity is providing So, for example, if it's
Speaker 1: a web based game, it can't be asking for all
Speaker 1: the information about the kids address and parents names and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff because it's not necessary in
Speaker 1: order to just play the game. Also, these entities are
Speaker 1: supposed to delete that information once the info is no
Speaker 1: longer needed to provide that service. This is tied pretty
Speaker 1: closely to the rules that the advertising industry set for
Speaker 1: itself when it comes to marketing towards children. In Kappa
Speaker 1: made the news uh within YouTube circles because the platform
Speaker 1: initiated some pretty big changes that had widespread effects on
Speaker 1: content creators. The short version is that YouTube requires creators
Speaker 1: to design whether their channels or on a more granular level,
Speaker 1: their individual videos are targeting kids specifically, and if so,
Speaker 1: then many of the typical features that we've come to
Speaker 1: expect on YouTube, you know, stuff like comments, uh, notifications,
Speaker 1: merchandise links, that kind of stuff, all of that gets
Speaker 1: turned off because of those strict rules about how sites
Speaker 1: and services can collect information about kids or how they
Speaker 1: can advertise to kids. So, in addition, that means personalized
Speaker 1: ads are turned off automatically for any of those videos or,
Speaker 1: in the case of channels, that are directed towards kids
Speaker 1: for the entire channel that affects monetization. It means that
Speaker 1: you get a lower level for revenue than you would
Speaker 1: with personalized ads, and that means that creators will make
Speaker 1: less money through those means. And for a lot of creators,
Speaker 1: these changes raised questions about whether or not their channel,
Speaker 1: which might be family friend e, might be tagged as
Speaker 1: being explicitly targeting kids. They could say, well, no, I
Speaker 1: don't target kids. I mean, I don't make content that's
Speaker 1: inappropriate for children, but I'm not specifically targeting children as
Speaker 1: my audience. And so there are a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about how do these different creators, you know, how do
Speaker 1: they fit within this rule set. So far, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem as though these changes have turned YouTube upside down
Speaker 1: or anything, but it is an ongoing dialogue between creators
Speaker 1: and the platform itself. Next, we have c P, A CPC, CPL,
Speaker 1: and CPM. So speaking of monetization, that's what all these
Speaker 1: initialisms kind of relate to. The CP in each of
Speaker 1: these stands for cost per So you've got cost per
Speaker 1: action for c P, a cost per click for CPC,
Speaker 1: cost per lead for CPL, and cost per mill a
Speaker 1: for cp UM. So all of this ties to advertising
Speaker 1: and how ad deals are struck between content providers or
Speaker 1: content platforms and the advertisers. So cost per action covers
Speaker 1: an amount paid per specific action that's taken by users.
Speaker 1: That action could be clicking on an AD, or it
Speaker 1: could be submitting an online form, or it might go
Speaker 1: so far as actually making a purchase. So the agreement
Speaker 1: here states that the advertiser will pay the content platform
Speaker 1: a specific fee every time some user takes this very
Speaker 1: particular action related to whatever the ad is. Cost per
Speaker 1: click is really a subset of cost per action. It
Speaker 1: specifically refers to the moment when someone clicks on an AD,
Speaker 1: So this isn't just whether or not someone saw an ad.
Speaker 1: It's not enough for it to just be an impression.
Speaker 1: In other words, this is if a person saw the
Speaker 1: ad and then acted by clicking through to see what
Speaker 1: the ad links to. So Google ads in search results
Speaker 1: typically fall into this category. If you ever do a
Speaker 1: Google search and then you click on one of the
Speaker 1: ad results, which are typically at the very top of
Speaker 1: the list, that's likely counting towards a cost per click
Speaker 1: revenue model. It doesn't affect you directly, it's just how
Speaker 1: the money is changing hands at that advertiser platform level.
Speaker 1: Then you have cost per lead or CPL. That's when
Speaker 1: you're usually talking about scenario in which someone is explicitly
Speaker 1: signing up for an offer. So if the ad leads
Speaker 1: to someone signing up to get a newsletter or something
Speaker 1: like that, that might be a cost per lead. And
Speaker 1: like the previous examples, the advertiser will pay out a
Speaker 1: certain amount of money for every user that actually follows
Speaker 1: through and generates a lead. And yeah, leads in this
Speaker 1: case essentially mean potential sales, as they typically represent someone
Speaker 1: who is interested in a specific product or so of us.
Speaker 1: And then finally you've got cost per mil a mill
Speaker 1: a is the old Roman word for thousand, and this
Speaker 1: is the impression model. So essentially CPM establishes a certain
Speaker 1: amount of money that an advertiser will pay per one
Speaker 1: thousand impressions or views. So if you've got a website
Speaker 1: and your website displays ads that are all based on impressions,
Speaker 1: the more people who come to visit your site, the
Speaker 1: more money you'll make. Once you have those one thousand
Speaker 1: impression blocks start to fill up. In addition, more popular
Speaker 1: sites can actually require a higher CPM, so that means
Speaker 1: that advertisers will actually pay more per one thousand impressions.
Speaker 1: These agreements typically have a set time limit on them,
Speaker 1: so for example, you might have an ad deal that
Speaker 1: lasts for three months, and at the end of the
Speaker 1: three months you get paid according to whatever your CPM
Speaker 1: rate is and how any people actually viewed that ad
Speaker 1: within the three month period. CPM approaches have led to
Speaker 1: some of the types of web pages that I personally dislike,
Speaker 1: such as the slide show approach for listicles, where every
Speaker 1: item on a list is its own web page. That's
Speaker 1: done because moving from one slide to another counts as
Speaker 1: a page refresh, which means you get another impression. So
Speaker 1: one way web pages boost impression counts is by using
Speaker 1: stuff like slide shows, galleries, and quizzes in order to
Speaker 1: get those page views to go up. Also, a website
Speaker 1: that can show that it has a higher page view
Speaker 1: rate can demand a higher CPM rate, so it all
Speaker 1: kind of feeds back on itself. We've got a few
Speaker 1: more seeds to go through, but I need to take
Speaker 1: a really quick break. Okay, we're up to a big one.
Speaker 1: See pu this one is a basic term that maybe
Speaker 1: all of you know, but just in case, it stands
Speaker 1: for central processing unit. This is the logic center for
Speaker 1: a computational device. It's the chip that performs basic operations
Speaker 1: on data to generate results. So you could have a
Speaker 1: program that's sending instructions and data to the CPU. Those
Speaker 1: instructions might be as simple as add these two numbers together,
Speaker 1: and then the CPU executes those instructions on the data
Speaker 1: and then sends the output to wherever it's supposed to
Speaker 1: go based on those instructions. CPUs handled general instructions, and
Speaker 1: so they have to be pretty good at pretty much everything,
Speaker 1: or at least they have to be passable at everything.
Speaker 1: For a general purpose computer, they typically have an arithmetic
Speaker 1: logic unit or a LU in them, which, as the
Speaker 1: name suggests, is in charge of executing arithmetic operations on data.
Speaker 1: A LU chip can exist on their own. They don't
Speaker 1: have to be full CPUs, and in fact, in some
Speaker 1: more um basic electronics you might just have an a
Speaker 1: l U. The CPU typically also has a control unit
Speaker 1: that's in charge of coordinating things within the CPU, such
Speaker 1: as fetching data from memory and then dictating the order
Speaker 1: of operations that the CPU is supposed to follow. CPUs
Speaker 1: operate at a specific rate of operations called the clock
Speaker 1: rate or clock speed. You can think of this as
Speaker 1: how many basic instructions the CPU is able to execute
Speaker 1: in a second. We measure this in hurts or cycles
Speaker 1: per second. So a CPU that operates on the mega
Speaker 1: Hurts scale is executing basic instructions at a rate of
Speaker 1: millions per second, though these days that would be slow.
Speaker 1: Your basic CPUs today operate on the giga Hurts scale,
Speaker 1: so we're talking billions of basic instructions every second. Some
Speaker 1: operations require more than one step in instructions, and the
Speaker 1: faster the clock rate, the faster the CPUs can execute instructions.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, the practice of overclocking refers to boosting a
Speaker 1: CPUs clock rate beyond whatever the factory set limit for
Speaker 1: that CPU happens to be. It's kind of like removing
Speaker 1: any sort of limitation device from a car so that
Speaker 1: it can actually go faster than it's rated top speed.
Speaker 1: On another note, while early CPUs used a single core architecture,
Speaker 1: it's pretty common these days for computers to have multi
Speaker 1: core processors. You can sort of think of these as
Speaker 1: slightly smaller CPUs that all work together. For certain types
Speaker 1: of computational problems, the multi core approach greatly speeds up
Speaker 1: processing by breaking those problems up into different components. This
Speaker 1: doesn't work for every computational problem, however, and so a
Speaker 1: multi core processor may sometimes not match a single or
Speaker 1: processor of a similar clock rate for a specific subset
Speaker 1: of computational problems. Getting into all of that would require
Speaker 1: a full episode of itself, so we'll leave it for now.
Speaker 1: Just know that most CPUs out there these days are
Speaker 1: multi core processors, and for the vast majority of types
Speaker 1: of software that we typical users run, that's fine. It's
Speaker 1: perfectly cromulent, as the Simpsons would say. Next, we have
Speaker 1: c R T. So in the context of technology, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about cathode ray tubes. This refers to the old
Speaker 1: style of computer monitors and displays and even television sets.
Speaker 1: These devices are big, bulky displays. They aren't just wide
Speaker 1: and tall like flat panel displays. They have depth, so
Speaker 1: in our flat screen world they look really clumsy and bulky.
Speaker 1: They're also incredibly heavy. Oh and they also have very
Speaker 1: powerful capacitors inside them that can hold on to a
Speaker 1: latent electric charge that makes them potentially very dangerous if
Speaker 1: you were to ever break one, So don't do that
Speaker 1: because you could get electrocuted or at least suffer a
Speaker 1: really serious shock. Anyway, the cathode ray tube refers to
Speaker 1: a component inside these displays that is in many ways
Speaker 1: similar to a light bulb. So you've got a tube
Speaker 1: inside of which is a filament that is suspended in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. So inside the tube is a vacuum, electricity
Speaker 1: can flow through the filament, which then causes the filament
Speaker 1: to start to give off electrons. Frequently, we call this
Speaker 1: an electron gun because of how it gives off and
Speaker 1: then directs electrons to hit the backside of a fluorescent screen.
Speaker 1: The impact of the electrons on those fluorescent components causes
Speaker 1: those components to you know, fluoresce or glow, and on
Speaker 1: the flip side, we see those as pixels of light
Speaker 1: on these types of display. So these electron guns are
Speaker 1: consistently scanning across the backs of these screens and generating
Speaker 1: the images that we see, whether it's television or computer
Speaker 1: monitor or display or whatever. These days, c r T
Speaker 1: s are a rarity. You still find them with some
Speaker 1: legacy systems, and folks who have old working televisions may
Speaker 1: still be using them, though with some pretty big limitations,
Speaker 1: but for the most part they have been replaced by
Speaker 1: other types of tech. Next, we have c s S
Speaker 1: that's cascading style sheets. This is a style sheet language,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't really help very much for most of us,
Speaker 1: I think, But for the web it means that you
Speaker 1: can use CSS to create the formatting style for information
Speaker 1: that will be displayed on the web, and you can
Speaker 1: separate the format that is the way that things are
Speaker 1: displayed within a browser, and you can separate that from
Speaker 1: the content, as in the actual stuff that's being displayed.
Speaker 1: So in the old days, if you wanted to create
Speaker 1: a web page, you had to code everything in. You
Speaker 1: had to set whatever the background color of the page
Speaker 1: was going to be, the text color of the font
Speaker 1: of the table, formats, font styles and size, layout styles
Speaker 1: and more, and it was a lot of work. CSS
Speaker 1: allows developers to create what is sort of like a
Speaker 1: format template. Any content that uses that CSS format will
Speaker 1: end up fitting that template once you publish it to
Speaker 1: the web, and you could port that content to a
Speaker 1: different CSS sheet and it would end up looking totally different.
Speaker 1: The word cascading here is used to describe a sort
Speaker 1: of order of operations. UH. You can think of it
Speaker 1: as an if then kind of approach, such as, if
Speaker 1: this web page is being viewed on a mobile device,
Speaker 1: then use this specific layout scheme. However, if the content
Speaker 1: is being viewed through a web browser on say a
Speaker 1: desktop computer, then use this other layout scheme that's optimized
Speaker 1: for that. Since different rules might apply depending upon the
Speaker 1: specific circumstances, the operations cascade and priority based on those circumstances.
Speaker 1: So it's really about removing a lot of the work
Speaker 1: that you would have to do if you were to
Speaker 1: do all of this by hand. CSS, by the way,
Speaker 1: is one of the foundational elements of the World Wide Web,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about another one in a future episode.
Speaker 1: And spoiler alert that one is HTML. But we've got
Speaker 1: a long way to go. We've got a lot more
Speaker 1: letters in the alphabet before we get to H. Next,
Speaker 1: we have DOLL and this isn't just what I say
Speaker 1: when I see a cute puppy dog, however, it's also
Speaker 1: that I also do say that no. DAW stands for
Speaker 1: digital audio workstation. So this is what audio editors and
Speaker 1: engineers used to work on digital audio files. A doll
Speaker 1: can be a selection of physical equipment, so it can
Speaker 1: be like a big bank of controls, complete with lots
Speaker 1: of you know, knobs and buttons and sliders. Or it
Speaker 1: can consist of software in which all of those physical
Speaker 1: controls are essentially virtualized. Or it could be a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. Podcasters use DAWs to record and edit
Speaker 1: their content. Most DAWs have tons of options to let
Speaker 1: you manipulate audio files in various ways. It might mean
Speaker 1: adding reverb to a selection, or it might mean changing
Speaker 1: the pit of the audio or the speed of the
Speaker 1: audio playback. And those are just tiny examples and some
Speaker 1: of the more overt features you'll find with DAWs. There's
Speaker 1: some that are incredibly subtle, and you might not even
Speaker 1: pick up on them, but you know, producers who have
Speaker 1: been working in the field for years will immediately recognize them.
Speaker 1: The one DAW that most of our producers tend to use,
Speaker 1: not all of them, but most of them, is called
Speaker 1: Audition from Adobe. Some produce there's wouldn't even call Audition
Speaker 1: a dawn simply because it lacks support that, say, musicians
Speaker 1: would rely upon, such as native support for MIDI integrations
Speaker 1: MIDI or m I d I is another initialism that
Speaker 1: we will cover in a future episode. Next, we have
Speaker 1: d l C. This stands for downloadable content, and typically
Speaker 1: this refers to additional content that embellishes an existing piece
Speaker 1: of software, most notably in video games, but not exclusively.
Speaker 1: DLC is a way for publishers to create and sell
Speaker 1: expansions to existing pieces of software. But it doesn't require
Speaker 1: developers to go in and create an all new version
Speaker 1: of the stuff, right. They can rely heavily on existing
Speaker 1: assets to build out these additional features. So in the
Speaker 1: video game world, you'll frequently see DLC used to flesh
Speaker 1: out fictional world or create new storylines or levels or
Speaker 1: missions for the play here to follow. But sometimes DLC
Speaker 1: might include purely cosmetic changes, or they'll include content that's
Speaker 1: you know, tangential to the game play. It doesn't actually
Speaker 1: represent more gameplay, but just kind of augments what's already
Speaker 1: been there. Just like games in general, DLC can be
Speaker 1: done really well or it can be done poorly. For
Speaker 1: most gamers, I would say good, DLC is typically seen
Speaker 1: as something that's priced appropriately. Typically you're talking about something
Speaker 1: that's priced below the price for a full game and
Speaker 1: provides a satisfying experience on top of whatever the main
Speaker 1: game is. Bad, DLC might be viewed as being too
Speaker 1: expensive or just containing superfluous content that doesn't really add anything.
Speaker 1: DLC can extend the life cycle of a game title.
Speaker 1: Some games can remain relevant years after their initial release
Speaker 1: because of DLC, and some games, like the hit Man games,
Speaker 1: the most recent ones, for example, can create entire revenue
Speaker 1: models based around DLC that just consistently adds new content
Speaker 1: to an older game. Well, I think that's a good
Speaker 1: place for us to leave off. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: more to cover. Obviously, we're just now INDs and we've
Speaker 1: still got a few DS to go. Beyond that, we
Speaker 1: have the rest of the alphabet. But I think that
Speaker 1: this is a really useful approach to kind of understanding
Speaker 1: some terms that you're gonna encounter as you navigate the
Speaker 1: world of tech, and not all of them are intuitive,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them can actually lead to people
Speaker 1: thinking that the initials stand for totally different stuff, and
Speaker 1: it can be very confusing. So I find that this
Speaker 1: sort of approach is good to build an understanding and
Speaker 1: a contextualization around tech, and I always find that to
Speaker 1: be particularly useful. So we will continue this in Wednesday's
Speaker 1: episode and probably beyond that, because unless I just get
Speaker 1: extremely efficient with descriptions, will have a lot more to
Speaker 1: go beyond that. But I think that this is a
Speaker 1: really useful path to go down. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: whether it's elaboration on any of these terms or something
Speaker 1: just interesting in the tech world, reach out to me.
Speaker 1: The best place to do that is on Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle we use is tech stuff h s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.